The Irrationality of Richard Dawkins

[Conservationist]

That article requires an awful lot of words to get across that without god, there is no intrinsic purpose to life.

Life is its own purpose.

Finding the divine in life serves that purpose.

Dawkins is an idiot, but then again, there's no way to prove or disprove God.

Even more, we're not talking about the interesting issue: do we seek an anthropomorphic, dualistic, moral, individualist God (Abrahamic) or an all-pervasive blind force of Will that supports and nurtures life itself (Vedanta)?

I think we'd all be less pissed about religion if it weren't liberal. Christianity and secular humanism are the same thing, a worship of a false symbol of the whole. Can we find divinity in Christianity? Some if not most of our best thinkers were Christian. Can Christianity be reformed? Schopenhauer thought so, and so have many others. It'll just be  a bit of a leap.

In another 100 years, Euro-Christianity will be paganism with Jesus as its spokesperson, and US Christianity will not be far behind. Since Pagan=Hindu, we'll see the cycle complete.

[indjaseemun]

Conservationist, do you agree with the author of the text in what he says?

[Cargést]

There is no morality exterior to humans; what there is, is a collection of actions which cause varying results depending on circumstances, and a hardwired lexicon which allows humans to recognise what actions are better in any given circumstance (more or less).  Of course, that lexicon is horrendously basic until expanded upon through education and experience, but it's still the closest thing that comes to anything resembling a "universal" morality (and, at that, it's apparently very easy to override, as evidenced by this Wise fellow, who's probably one of the most intelligent people you could meet [it's in the name]).  Coupled with the fact that between more diverse populations of humans this lexicon will be different (for evolutionary reasons), Moral Relativism (NOT MORAL SUBJECTIVISM) holds fast against Moral Objectivism, though perhaps not as satisfactory a negation as one might hope.

[Veritas]

Morality exists - not only in humans, but in everything that Is. It cannot be elucidated through any kind of scientific exposition, except indirectly.

Relativism refers to local relations of subjectivity, objectivity to global relations. Morality, as all else, applies equivalently to each, for each is but a shift in perspective.

[Cargést]

Display to me morality, if you would.  I'd like to experience it, or something as close to it as possible, for myself.  So far, a significant amount of education and study has shown that, contrary to popular wishing, there is nothing within the fabric of space, time, or God, which is intrinsically "moral" in nature (which would be an odd characteristic for any object to have, requiring that it be both descriptive [as all objects] and prescriptive [and possibly proscriptive, as well]), to which we, as individuals, can look, and understand that there is some fundamental burden on us which should alter our actions, other than our own base instincts, which are both conquerable and at times "immoral".

[Veritas]

Nothing exists bar raw experience, but we need some kind of conceptual model for interpreting the World.

To some this includes the notion of absolute morality, to others it doesn't.

[Cargést]

For morality to exist outside of Human consciousness, it would have to apply to all humans.  If some are predisposed to it and others not, that suggests that it isn't universal in the slightest, and also suggests that it is a fabrication of our own.

[Veritas]

For morality to exist outside of Human consciousness, it would have to apply to all humans.  If some are predisposed to it and others not, that suggests that it isn't universal in the slightest, and also suggests that it is a fabrication of our own.

Is there anything that this doesn't apply to? Even maths is just a fabrication, but that doesn't stop it from being immensely useful as a way of thinking about reality. Though, not everyone will benefit from knowing maths - to some, this will only hinder their understanding of how the world works.

[Cargést]

Mathematics is our recognition of phenomena already existing in nature.  Morality is on an entirely different plain - without us, there would be no concept of "morality" (excluding the concept of other intelligent life), though there would still exist (unrecognised) mathematical constants.

[Galvanized]

Read some Parmenides Cargest and get back to me.

[Veritas]

Mathematics is our recognition of phenomena already existing in nature.  Morality is on an entirely different plain - without us, there would be no concept of "morality" (excluding the concept of other intelligent life), though there would still exist (unrecognised) mathematical constants.

So, mathematics is a symbolic language used to describe something which does exist. Morality is the same thing. The difference is that mathematics describe a property of objective relations, whereas morality requires the subject.

[Cargést]

THUS, morality is not objective, and my point still stands.  I'm beginning to wonder whether your view was even at odds with mine at the beginning.

Read some Parmenides Cargest and get back to me.

Brahman.  In future, tell people simply to read Parmenides (ALL of it, haha) - there's not very much of it available to modern man (more's the pity).

[Veritas]

THUS, morality is not objective, and my point still stands.  I'm beginning to wonder whether your view was even at odds with mine at the beginning.

Objective/subjective can apply to a number of different divisions. Colours are subjective on the one hand, but still "exist". It is not trivial whether anything non-subjective exists at all, except, perhaps, causal relations between subjective states (which still only exist as a way of allowing multiple subjects to exist simultaneously).

I know that fundamentally we agree, but there are nevertheless differences in how we choose to add structure to that understanding, each structural model being better suited for different interpretations of the world. I'm only really arguing because I wished to convey these concepts through dialectic processes, not to change either of our personal understandings.

[Chains]

Colours are not subjective. They can be strictly defined as light with a wavelength between a given range. Of course, you can argue whether a specific wavelength is called either green or blue, but that is just semantics. Speaking of which, if you are not sure non-subjective things / events exist, which obviously means you must exclude most of science from the label objective, what exactly do you mean by subjective?

Also, I'm still confused by your statement that morality exists in objects.

[Cargést]

THUS, morality is not objective, and my point still stands.  I'm beginning to wonder whether your view was even at odds with mine at the beginning.

Objective/subjective can apply to a number of different divisions. Colours are subjective on the one hand, but still "exist". It is not trivial whether anything non-subjective exists at all, except, perhaps, causal relations between subjective states (which still only exist as a way of allowing multiple subjects to exist simultaneously).

Colours are the result of subjective experience of objective properties.  I suppose it could be said that morality is the subjective realisation of objectively "better" methods/modes of action, but then, you have to use a qualifier like "better" in that conception morality, which is using the concept to define itself.  To add to that, most people's moralities are definitely not "better" methods of action ("Thou shalt not kill"?  What if it's an enemy/rapist/retard?), though this may be seen as simply the result of having a different perspective.  I would agree with the statement "moralities exist", but I cannot find any evidence of a single moral entity/property or group of such things embedded within the physical, objective reality (in the way that colour is).  If it/they did exist, given the vastness of the moral plane and different peoples' ideas of what is right and wrong, such a "fundamental morality" would have to be incredibly basic (along the lines of "do what you understand to be the right thing", which is, even then, completely ignored by many).

I'm only really arguing because I wished to convey these concepts through dialectic processes, not to change either of our personal understandings.

I'd assumed this much at the beginning.  Rarely, nowadays, do I go into an argument believing that I can drastically shift another's perception of the world.  Alter, perhaps, in some minor way, but the same would happen to me in that case.  I'm definitely looking at the subject from perspectives with which I am barely acquainted, having last set aside this discussion almost a year ago (though, of course, it's an eternal subject of debate).